Thomas Jefferson Quotes

Historically, both religious and secular laws originate from the same source

Congress shall not make any law infringing the rights of conscience, or establishing any religious sect or society Congress shall make no law establishing one religious sect or society in preference to others. Congress shall make no law establishing any particular denomination of religion in preference to another

The first amendment makes it clear that we are free to practice religion without government interference. The Constitution also establishes the separation of church and state so that the laws we live by our never guided by religious zeal.

Christianity is part of the Common Law of England.

No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion.

Whatever America's founders believed about Christianity - and they believed a wide range of things - they clearly rejected the idea of an established church.

The framers of our Constitution meant we were to have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

While we have a Constitution that is very strong in the sense that we are not gonna have a religion that's sanctioned by the government, it doesn't mean that we need to have a separation between government and religion.

I don’t see a bit of danger from us having an established religion.

There is little doubt that religious liberty is best exercised within the setting of the secular state.

The Government of the United States possesses no power whatever over the question of religion.

To say that religion cannot stand without a state establishment is not only contrary to fact (as has been proved already) but is a contradiction in phrase.

The study of law is, after all, largely the study of history.

T]he prevailing opinion in Europe, England not excepted, has been that religion could not be preserved without the support of government nor government be supported without an established religion that there must be at least an alliance of some sort between them. It remained for North America to bring the great and interesting subject to a fair, and finally a decisive test

If they wanted a Christian state, they could have done it. They were writing the rules. They could have put God in the rules.

What is considered sinful in one of the great religions to which citizens belong isn't necessarily sinful in the others. Criminal law therefore cannot be based on the notion of sin …

The Constitution of the State did not recognize the Christian Religion any more than it recognized …. The school board had an obligation as well as a right to keep religious partisanship out of the public schools.

I think church and state should remain entirely separate at all costs, and that the decision of religious marriage should be of each faith to debate and decide free of political influence.

If the Christians who were alive in the 1770s behaved and believed like the Christians of today, there wouldn't be an America as we know it.

Though there are laws against blasphemy and insult to religion in many European countries, France has institutionalised its anti-clerical past by proscribing religion from public life.

I think that we are at a point in our country where we're trying to decide what role should religion play in the political arena.

Government needs to stay out of the religion business altogether.

The problem is that you can't impose the church's teachings on all Americans as a matter of law.

All modern secularity requires is that our public norms and the arguments for them not presuppose common acceptance of Jewish or Christian revelation, even if these public norms are consistent with a particular community's revelation and the authoritative teachings it derives from that revelation.

The restriction of religion to private life therefore does not necessarily threaten the vital interests of the majority religion, if there is one, and it protects minority religions from tyranny of the majority.